Kitchen islands are common and popular, and often include a gas or electric stove top for cooking. Such an island stove top presents problems with venting, since the island sits in the open area of the kitchen, apart from any walls. Prior art venting for islands generally comes in two forms, upward and downward venting. Upward venting involves a hood at the lower end of a column hanging from the ceiling. The hood captures rising hot air carrying grease, steam, smoke, and/or odors, and vents them upwardly through a duct extending through the hanging column. In order to be effective, such hanging hoods must extend to a height approximately 28-30 inches above the cooking surface. However, at this elevation, the hood obstructs view across the kitchen and from one side of the island to the other.
Downward venting systems typically include a panel which extends or pops up from the island a short distance and draws air laterally across the cooking surface for expulsion through a duct extending downwardly into the island. However, since hot air naturally rises, such downward venting systems are inefficient and allows substantial portions of grease, steam, smoke and/or odors to escape into the ambient kitchen air.
Another type of venting system is disclosed in Applicant""s U.S. Pat. No. 6,276,358, which discloses a pop-up table top with vent hoods that can be extended and retracted so as to overlay a portion of the cooking surface. A similar pop-up column with a swivel vent hood is offered for sale by Gaggenau under the tradename V1051 Cook-Top Ventilator, which has a hood extending over a portion of the cooking surface. In both the Gaggenau system and the system of U.S. Pat. No. 6,276,358, the vent hoods are relatively small and do not cover all of the cooking surface. Therefore, these ventilation systems are not efficient in capturing rising air from cooking areas beyond the reach of the small hoods.
Therefore, a primary objective of the present invention is the provision of an improved kitchen island vent hood.
Another objective of the present invention is the provision of an island vent hood which extends over substantially the entire cooking area to capture grease, steam, smoke and/or odors.
A further objective of the present invention is the provision of an island vent hood which is retractable into the island when not in use and extensible over the entire cooking surface when in use.
Still another objective of the present invention is the provision of an improved island vent hood which can be positioned at various heights above the cooking surface and which can also be horizontally positioned overall or a portion of the cooking surface.
Still another objective of the present invention is the provision of an island vent hood which is efficient and durable in use, and economical to manufacture.
These and other objectives will become apparent from the following description of the invention.
An improved vent hood is provided for an island cooking surface. The vent hood is mounted on an extensible and retractable column so as to be retracted into a recess in the island structure when not in use, and is extensible to a height up to 30 inches above the cooking surface when in use. The column extends from a position in the island rearwardly of the cooking surface, preferably at an angle of approximately 15xc2x0 from vertical. The vent hood slides horizontally from a forward position covering the cooking surface to a retracted position for receipt in the island recess when not in use. Separate actuators control the raising and lowering of the column and the extension and retraction of the vent hood relative to the column. The movement of the vent hood actuator is amplified by linkages so as to maximize the extension of the vent hood with minimal space requirements for the actuator.